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No need for an electronic piano/keyboard. A cheap, small MIDI keyboard is just as good for a beginner. Or if they really want something closer to a piano, a larger or full 88-key weighted MIDI keyboard is still a lot cheaper than an electronic keyboard, while still likely providing the same or more value.

(For those unaware of the difference, a MIDI keyboard doesn't itself produce any sound, and instead produces digital MIDI notes which are received and played in [almost] real-time by a software instrument on your computer, such as a software synth running in a DAW like GarageBand or Ableton Live. An electronic keyboard can directly produce sound through headphones or speakers when connected to a power source. Electronic keyboards may support MIDI, as well. MIDI keyboards are generally much cheaper and lighter and, IMO, are just as good or better, with the only requirement being that you have to connect them to a computer when using them. They generally support USB.)

Id recommend a standalone instrument. As soon as you connect midi controller to the computer the millions of options start to distract away from the fundamentals. The controller is an option if you can stick to what you decided to do and have the will not to get lost in options

It's just totally unnecessary and costs you a lot more money for no good reason, unless you have a strong desire to play without access to a computer. (And if it's an electric instrument, you still need access to a power outlet.) If you like, you can just use a plugin with very few parameters, like a simple piano plugin.

Also, what if there isn't anything in particular "you've decided to do"? What if you've decided to just have fun playing with instruments and making music? In that case, all of the options available make it even more fun. I learned way more about music by choosing as my first instrument plugin a weird, crazy synth with tons of options and possibilities (Synplant: https://soniccharge.com/synplant) rather than something more basic.

You have the best shot of learning something if you stick with it due to interest and motivation, and that definitely kept me a lot more interested and motivated than if I had used a simple piano VST, or a physical instrument. Kind of like how many people who start off with rote exercises in programming languages they consider boring tend to drop it and never learn anything, while people who start off with more dynamic languages are more likely to stick with it.

I strongly disagree, and I say that as a classically trained musician. You can do pretty much everything with a mouse and (QWERTY) keyboard today. We've worked really hard to democratize content creation and lower the barrier to entry, we don't need to raise it by reinforcing the notion that you need a physical aptitude for playing instruments to create art with sound.

The computer can be an entry point for one's journey just the same as an acoustic guitar or piano. You can use that as your platform to learn theory as well as (if not better than) a piano or guitar.

But to get elitist for a moment, there's no better way to learn music aside from private lessons. That's true of any instrument, including the DAW.

I don't know if you can really have the perspective on this if you were a classically trained musician. You already knew all that stuff inside and out.

I think a lot of music produced on a qwerty keyboard eschews huge amount of music theory just because it's produced that way.

My perspective was from the other way.. trying to learn it all playing with DAWs and other tools (admittedly a long time ago) and failing. Nothing about these tools will teach you why certain notes sound good together or why certain chords sound good together, etc..

For sure lots of electronic music just tries to skip all that completely though, or follows super strict genre rules where if you follow them it all comes out OK.

But we mostly agree though, the lessons are what make the difference. When I tried to learn this though there was zero accessibility of local teachers who would have taught through a DAW or something like that though. Finding a piano or guitar teacher was something available everywhere.

If you want to learn the fundamentals it is better to remove all distractions. If you want to produce a song it is much easier on a computer. But the meat of creativity comes from limitations though

It’s also fine if people just create something they like, even if it isn’t up to someone else’s standards.

So true, and this is how musical ages and styles change!

We could talk about Baroque vs Classical and that switch over into what the standards were. Or how hip-hop turned from a musical expression of life (and certainly not because of living up to some musical standard) into something that is right at the forefront of music today!

I feel like a corollary would be youtube vs movie studios. Sure, one is more expensive than the others, has standards, etc. But sometimes those things don't mean much, sometimes it's just about the story, the music, the authenticity of the feelings.

I'd be even less reserved than that. Many very popular and acclaimed musicians (be it people producing stuff with software in a DAW, or playing electric/acoustic instruments, or both) get to where they are just by messing around for a while and developing an intuitive musicality and composing ability despite never learning any music theory. So one may very well be up to more people's standards than they might think, once they put some time in.

It's probably worth it to spend a little bit of time learning the fundamentals, but like with programming, you can self-teach pretty well by just learning the absolute basics and then developing expertise through experimentation, trial-and-error, and pursuing what interests you.

Just as you don't need a 4 year degree to become a competent programmer, you don't need to deliberately study and practice music theory or classical technique for months/years to become a competent musician. In both cases, you can learn and practice by doing, if that's what you prefer. You can take a "hacker" approach for both domains.

Yes but one can be a modern musician without playing any instrument at all, the software can guide you on the right tracks and the need to actually “play” as in connecting oneself to any instrument can be bypassed alltogether. And that is a double edged sword as the effort to sit down and learn an instrument becomes an extremely hard task as compared to the handholding the computer can do for you. It’s almost like the diference between deep reading and reading small bits of information on the internet.

I'm skeptical there are very many good ones (by my subjective taste) who use that approach. I suspect many of those people still use their computer keyboards as a way of entering notes in real-time, in which case you are still basically playing an instrument, with your computer keyboard acting as a MIDI keyboard.

I also don't really think there's any software that "handholds" or "guides" you in the way you're describing. Can you give an example? If it's a drum machine, you still have to program the patterns yourself, for example. Your DAW won't structure your tracks for you.

>none of it's really a good starting place without initial musical knowledge, which does not come from fooling with recording gear or DAWs.

For modern genres, music knowledge can be built by listening and DJing. It's also the classic path to become a producer.

If you learn how to mix, you and can then transport this knowledge to production. Not only do you know what to produce as a beginner (fill holes in your own mixes), but you also know how it should sound because knowing to mix implies that you know how to mix in key, also important when you transpose samples or patch synths.

Serato/Serato Studio or Ableton combine both, so you could learn how to make DJ mixes in those DAWs before you move on into beat production.

Pianos go new for thousands of dollars, and used for free -- if you can move them yourself. In between, there are really good electronic keyboards in the few hundred dollars range.

used to this so, too; contrary to that, deadmau5 is pretty great even though he doesn't play any instrument or know theory, he just uses his mouse and keyboard to try stuff in Ableton. Watch his masterclass, it's pretty eye-opening

seems similar to coding - some people do a short bootcamp and start to produce, while others are kind of helpless even with a masters degree in CS

His music has been incredibly stale for years though. Maybe as a result. Longtime listener.